ShrimpFace
by chips2
Summary: Faith has an argument with her mother and stays over at the boys' apartment.But when Noah is left to take over older brother duties from Luke, is he up to the task at hand?


Faith was a full blown angst-ridden teenager. She stood outside Luke's and Noah's place with an overnight bag slung over one shoulder and cheeks streaming with tears. She had had a screaming match with her mother which had ended in her storming out.

At ten o'clock in the evening and too proud to apologize, the fifteen year old decided to stay over at her older brother's apartment. That was provided he opened the door for her sometime this century. She pressed the buzzer again and wiped her tears, her anger at her mother was now morphing into impatience towards Luke.

A couple of minutes later, Noah appeared at the door wearing only a pair of dark boxer briefs. He looked disheveled, his lips were a little bee stung and his pupils were blown.

She smiled knowingly,

"Your boxers are on the wrong way around."

Noah grumbled something incoherent and let her in.

"Oh my God! I interrupted you having sex with my brother. Ewww!!!" Faith shrieked.

Noah ignored her comment. He had been disrupted in the middle of something beautiful and frankly, darn hot.

"I take it you are here for sanctuary."

Faith nodded.

"You want to talk now or later?" He asked.

"Later."

"Food?"

"No."

"Drink?"

"No."

"Okay, bed then. We'll speak with you in the morning." Noah pointed at the guest bedroom.

Before following orders Faith called out to her brother through the closed door to the main bedroom,

"Hi Luke! Sorry for the '_coitus interruptus'_. As you were!" She snickered like she had cracked the greatest joke on the planet.

They both heard a muffled,

"Ha ha."

"Bed!" Noah said before disappearing into the room he shared with Luke and locking the door.

"Oh my God, I was so close." Luke whimpered as Noah took his underwear back off before joining him in bed.

Noah kissed his frustrated boyfriend.

"I know." He gently touched his face. "We could be quiet." He ran a suggestive finger down Luke's chest.

"Noah, we cannot be quiet. We are never quiet! And there is no way either of us is going to howl with my little sister in the next room."

"I hate your sister." Noah didn't mean that. It was his catchphrase. Anything that stood in the way of him and Luke he 'hated'.

Luke laughed, "No you don't. You just love making love with me."

"What gave you that impression? If you must know, I could take it or leave it!" Noah grinned cheekily.

"Liar!"

Noah smiled and nestled in close to his lover kissing that place where jaw meets ear.

"I think I'm going to have a serious talk with Faith tomorrow. She has stayed over three times this week. Something is up." Luke said sluggishly. Sleep was gradually claiming him.

"That's a good idea." Noah murmured, gently rubbing his boyfriend's back. "But you have a meeting with Damian in the morning."

"Right." That was Luke's last word before he slumbered.

Noah sighed and gently kissed Luke's forehead. He quickly called Lily to reassure her that Faith was safe.

~.~.~.~

"Shrimp-Face you're up!" Noah didn't lift his face from behind the newspaper he was reading whist sat at the kitchen table.

The nickname was the result of what Noah thought Faith looked like when she pouted. At first, he used it to tease her out of her epic bad moods but she had them so frequently that it had stuck. Faith would never admit that she found it amusing.

"Noah!" Faith moaned wiping the sleep out of her eyes. "I'm not a kid any more. Quit calling me that."

"What? 'Shrimp-Face'?" Noah took a sip out of his mug of coffee.

"Yes."

Noah put the newspaper and mug down. Luke's sister was dressed in pink pajamas with fluffy white sheep on. For a fifteen year old trying to act grown up she was failing pretty badly.

With a wide smile he said,

"No!"

"Argh!" she cried in frustration before sitting next to him and pouring herself a bowl of cereal.

"Where is your boyfriend?" Faith munched her Special-_K_.

"Work."

"Good."

"Why?" Noah began to worry.

"I wanted to talk to you in private."

_Uh-huh,_ Noah thought. As Luke's boyfriend he had also inherited the Snyder family. That was a good thing. Luke's parents were amazing and his sibling's got on with Noah famously. But he had a soft spot for Faith. They seemed to share a slightly introverted nature.

"This sounds serious." Noah said apprehensively.

"It is." Noah wasn't sure he wanted to inherit Luke's big brother duties.

"Wouldn't you feel better speaking to Luke about whatever it is?" Noah tried.

"No. That would just be awkward."

"Fine, hang on." Noah downed his mug of coffee and lightly slapped his cheeks. "I'm awake. Go for it."

"Promise not to laugh?"

"Promise."

"What is it like to have sex?"

Noah nearly fell off his chair.

"Um."

"Now you see why I couldn't talk to Luke."

Noah nodded then swallowed slowly.

"Shrimp-Face, I'm not the best person to talk to about this. Usually it's your mom."

Faith glared at him.

"Or your aunt_._ I can't relate from a female point of view."

Faith pressed on. "Okay, this is the deal. I like Jordan a lot. J is cool, but not in an 'I'm a stupid jock with no brains' way. He is more Adam Brody in the 'O.C.' cool. He is gorgeous too, like, Joe Jonas gorgeous. No scratch that, Rob Pattinson gorgeous."

Noah looked at her blankly.

"_Twilight? Jonas Brothers?_" That didn't help. "Wow, Noah where have you been these past two years?"

"Having a life."

"Funny. Anyway, so J asked me out to the prom and I said yes. But there is this rumor that he expects me to, you know. And now I don't know what to do. I mean, I like him and everything but I've never done it and I don't want him to dump me if I say no... ."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Noah's head hurt.

"Is this J kid in your class?"

"No, he's in the year above. He is a junior."

"An older man." Noah teased. The kid wouldn't be older than seventeen. "Do you know him well?"

"Sort of. We are in the journalism group together. He told me he joined because I was in it. Oh and he sits with me at lunch." Faith blushed.

"It sounds like he likes you." Noah mused. "Has he asked you out on a date before?"

"Yes, but I was too shy so I said no."

"I can understand that."

"How did you handle your first crush?" Faith asked genuinely curious.

"I am not talking to you about it."

"Please Noah. It would help me out no end." Oh, the shrimp face was back!

"Somehow, I doubt that. It was a perfect example of what _not_ to do."

"Even better. I'll know what pitfalls to avoid."

"Fine but if you ever repeat this to anyone I'll call you Shrimp-Face in public!"

"Deal."

"I was thirteen and my father was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, which is an army training post. I went to school there and met a fellow army brat named Gabriel."

Faith's elbows were secured on the table and her chin settled into two open palms. She was already enthralled.

"We were inseparable from the get go. He had dark hair like mine but his eyes were a crazy emerald green. He was my first crush before I could put a name to my feelings.

"We stayed best friends for three years and throughout I was confused by my emotions. Then we worked together over a summer break at the Moon River theatre in Branson. By then I realized what I felt for him was deeper than friendship. I liked him a lot.

"One day, we were sorting out the prop room; actually we played 'cops and robbers' with the fake guns. To cut a long story short, I was a really bad criminal. He kept catching me."

Faith's eyes were twinkling,

"Really? I think you wanted to get caught!"

Noah's silence spoke volumes.

"He pinned me down with a gun pointed at my head and I decided I would kiss him. He must have thought the same thing because we clashed heads as we both lunged forwards."

Faith suppressed a laugh.

"Anyway, we kissed and it was like magic. But then I got cold feet. I thought that what we had done was wrong, so I avoided him for weeks. He finally showed up at my house. Again we made out. I couldn't help it, the urge was too strong. Only this time my dad, a fully decorated army Colonel, walked in on us. His reaction was not pleasant and resulted in us moving away and my father telling me about what an abomination I was and that I would need straightening out."

"That's terrible. But in some ways I'm glad because you might have ended up with Gabe and not my brother." Faith said softly.

Noah smiled at the strangely sweet statement.

"True. I wish my sixteen year old self knew that because at the time I was heartbroken."

Noah putting his cards on the table allowed Faith to open up.

"I'm worried that if I go all the way with J then he'll drop me as soon as he is done. At the same time what if he leaves because I don't put out?"

"My first bit of advice is, _why rush_? If he really cares for you and you aren't ready then he'll wait. Your brother and I did, for a long time! Personally, I was not ready for sex at sixteen. You can still do lots of other stuff, intimate and not intimate.

"It's a horrible feeling to regret your actions. So whatever you do make sure you are doing it because _you_ want to." Noah thought back to his relationship with Maddie.

"Did you regret your kiss with Gabe?"

"I didn't regret a single moment. At the time, Gabe meant the world to me. I suppose that takes me to my second bit of advice. I think sex has to be with someone you really care about, love even. Perhaps I'm old fashioned but it takes the experience to a whole new level and it becomes more than just a physical act." Noah thought of Luke and smiled.

"Was Luke your first time?"

"Shrimp, this is not an opportunity to pry into my sex life!"

"Come on! I'll take that as a 'no' then. You slept with Gabriel didn't you?"

Noah stared her down.

Faith realized that she wasn't going to get any more out of him.

"Cool. Thanks for the advice!" Faith poured herself some orange juice, downed it and started walking towards the guest bedroom.

"Wait. Is that it?" Noah asked. Faith looked back at him.

"Yep. I've decided I'm just not ready. J is going to have to like it or lump it."

Noah smiled at himself as he looked at her. _Thank God!_

"Faith. If you want to talk about contraception, let me know." _Where did that come from?_ Now he was just asking for awkward conversation!

Faith looked at him as if he had grown two heads.

"Ugh, don't think so! That would be too weird. Anyway, I know the deal."

Faith's hand was poised on the bedroom door knob.

"By the way, you never answered my first question, what is it like having sex?"

Noah blushed but felt he ought to be honest.

"With the right person, you can't find the words to describe it. It's always a beautiful work in progress."

Faith smiled. Her brother was lucky. Noah was transparently crazy about him.

"I think I'll go home and say sorry to mom."

~.~.~.~

Noah was lying in bed while Luke busied himself around the bedroom.

"So you lied to her."

"By omission."

Luke raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I wasn't going to say that my father caught me having sex with my best friend in my room when I was sixteen. It doesn't set a good example."

"I suppose." Luke said.

Noah had been very open about his past. He had slept with two other girls when he was in high school after Gabe, a reaction to his father's constant taunting about how he was a poor excuse for a man. Then, of course there was Maddie.

Luke knew with complete certainty that the only experiences that meant anything to Noah were him and Gabe. He should have perhaps felt jealous. Instead he was grateful. Gabe had awakened the feelings in Noah and made him realize that love between two men could be _beautiful_. It would take meeting Luke for him to know that it could also be _right_.

Noah continued. "Everything else was true. I think you should only sleep with people you deeply care for. I wish I'd taken heed of that one. And, I think it's cool to wait. And it's meant that your sister will hopefully express her own mind and have sex when she is ready and not because people around her expect her to."

Luke crawled onto the bed dressed in pajama trousers. He hovered over Noah,

"Thank you." Luke's eyes grew dark with lust and longing.

"My dad always used to tell me 'actions speak louder than words'." Noah whispered, bringing Luke's face closer.

Luke's tongue darted out swiping at Noah's upper lip.

"When did you ever listen to your dad?"

"When it served my purpose." Noah devoured Luke's mouth. The desire of the previous night had rolled over leaving them both eager and urgent.

In the throes of passion Noah thought about how to explain how he was feeling.

It was beyond description.


End file.
